Greek Minister Quits on First Day Over Anti-Semitic Tweets

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Newly-appointed Greek government Minister Dimitris Kammenos resigned only hours into the job over anti-Semitic and racist remarks he made on social media.

Hours after starting his new job, a junior minister in Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ left-wing government resigned late Wednesday over racist and anti-Semitic messages posted on his Twitter account.

Dimitris Kammenos, a deputy minister for infrastructure, submitted his resignation hours after Tsipras’ new Cabinet was sworn in.

The 49-year-old Kammenos is a member of parliament from the Independent Greeks, a small right-wing party that joined the new coalition government after a general election was held Sunday.

Kammenos said offending comments posted in 2014 and 2015 on his account — which has now been cancelled — were being investigated at his request by the police’s cyber-crime division, claiming that several members of his staff had helped run the account.

In one tweet from June, he compared the European Union to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp.

In another tweet he promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claiming that 2,500 Jews employed in New York’s World Trade Center “skipped work” on the day of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The resignation was an embarrassing start for Tsipras, who won a surprisingly comfortable election victory but now faces a major challenge in implementing the harsh terms of a third international bailout.

By: AP and United with Israel Staff

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